Virginia Woolf

'The ponderous woman looked through the pattern of falling words at the flowers standing cool, firm, and upright in the earth, with a curious expression. . . So heavy the woman came to a standstill opposite the oval shaped flowerbed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was saying.' Virginia Woolf's short fiction has long been acknowledged as the place where she tried out some of her more experimental techniques before adopting and adapting them for use in her novel-length works. While this is certainly true, it is also the case that these short pieces are now increasingly being recognized as important works of art in their own right, rather than simply flights of experimental fancy awaiting their full actualization in the novel form. This new edition edited by Bryony Randall emphasises the startling variety in Woolf's experimentation during the most productive period of short fiction writing in Woolf's life, the late 1910s through to the end of the 1920s. It draws readers' attention to the deep political engagements evident across the range of her work and on the recent burgeoning of work in modernist print culture to set out the importance of the material context of these works' initial publication and reception.

Based on the events of a single day, a Wednesday in June 1923, Mrs. Dalloway is a unique book as its narrative skillfully interweaves unconnected storylines to take place on this fateful day. The story opens with Clarissa running an errand to buy flowers. Reactions of different people can be noticed when unexpected events keep occurring throughout the day. For example, a plane writing in the sky and a car emitting an explosive noise. Peter, her old partner, shows up not long after she gets home. During their conversation, it becomes evident that the two are still very much in love with one another. In a vulnerable exchange, Peter asks Clarissa if she's happy. Elizabeth, Clarissa's daughter, cuts them off before Clarissa can respond. The narrative then shifts to a World War I veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, who is suffering from PTSD. In order to meet Sir William Bradshaw, a psychiatrist, he is waiting with his wife, Lucrezia. Another perspective switch takes place and this time we get to experience Richard's narrative, who is going through an internal struggle with respect to his relationship with his wife Clarissa. The change in narratives keeps the reader on edge and leads to a conclusion which manages to bring everything together.

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’ Six friends traverse the uneven road of life together in Virginia Woolf’s most unconventional classic. Bernard, Jinny, Louis, Neville, Rhoda and Susan first meet as children by the sea, and their lives are forever changed. A poetic novel written in a lyrical way only Woolf could master, these narrators face both triumph and tragedy that touches them all. Throughout their lives, they examine the relationship between past and present, and the meaning of life itself. A landmark of innovative fiction and the most experimental of Virginia Woolf’s novels, The Waves is still regarded as one of the greatest works ever written in the English language.

First published in 1921 as part of her ground-breaking short-story collection Monday or Tuesday, Kew Gardens follows the thoughts of a set of characters walking past a flower bed in the royal botanic garden on a hot July day. Interweaving the thoughts of the characters with depictions of the natural world surrounding them, the narrative flows from mind to mind, from the tranquil flower bed to the bustling city outside. Written in Woolf's trademark style, brimming with keen observation and rich language, Kew Gardens is both a paean to the natural world and an empathetic exploration of human experience. 'The light fell either upon the smooth, grey back of a pebble or the shell of a snail with its brown, circular veins, or, falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such intensity of red, blue and yellow the thin walls of water that one expected them to burst and disappear… Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women who walk in Kew Gardens in July.'

As Katharine Hilbery, the granddaughter of a famous man of letters buried in Poets’ Corner, is helping her mother write the biography of their illustrious progenitor, she becomes engaged to William Rodney, a budding writer with an exaggerated opinion of his own poetical talent. Meanwhile, the suffragette Mary Datchet is in love with Ralph Denham, a lawyer and reviewer from a lowly background, who in turn feels more attracted to Katharine. As the stories and the romantic interests of these four young people evolve and intertwine, a picture emerges of a society still obsessed with class and hung up on the social mores of the Victorian era. By far the most accessible and traditional of all Virginia Woolf’s novels, Night and Day is a powerful evocation of a fast-changing world, and, though conventional in style, addresses many of the author’s recurring preoccupations, such as the role of women in society and the difficulties in reconciling love and marriage.

"A revolutionary novel of profound scope and depth, about a day in the life of a woman who runs a few errands, sees an old suitor and gives a dull party. It’s a masterpiece created out of the humblest narrative materials. . . . Woolf was one of the first writers to understand there are no insignificant lives, only inadequate ways of looking at them." —The New York Times The story follows one day of upper-class housewife Clarissa Dalloway’s life as she plans and hosts a dinner party at her house. Along the way she meets with people from both her past—a former suitor whose proposal she rejected and whom she no longer gets along with—and her present—her distant husband, Richard; her daughter, Elizabeth; and her daughter’s teacher, Miss Kilman, whom she despises (and who feels the same towards Clarissa). Proving herself a master and innovator of the parallel narrative, Woolf separately introduces reader to another storyline about a young veteran who was once a poet and a romantic before experiencing the horrors of war and becoming suicidal. He is diagnosed with mental illness and is being forced to separate from his wife and go to a mental asylum. Written one of the most prolific female authors of the twentieth century, this stunning novel is often considered Woolf's magnum opus. Enjoy this beautifully rejuvenated edition of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.

सच कहूँ तो तुम्हारे साथ रहते हुए मुझे ऐसा महसूस होता कि मिलानचोली नदी हमें बरदाश्त कर रही थी। चाँदनी रात में चाँद की रोशनी तुम्हारे चेहरे पर पड़ने के कारण मैं तुम्हारे चेहरे को और उस पर आनेवाले भावों को देख रहा था, तुम्हारी आवाज को सुन पा रहा था। बिस्तर पर हम तब तक एक साथ पड़े रहते, जब तक चिडि़यों के चहचहाने की आवाज नहीं सुनाई देने लगती। लेकिन अगर ऐसा है, तो फिर मन के अंदर यह शोक क्यों है? मैं असंतुष्ट क्यों हूँ? जबकि मैं यह अच्छी तरह से जानता हूँ कि एक दिन हर किसी को गुलाब की पत्तियों के नीचे सुकून की नींद सोना है। जहाँ सोने के बाद आप गुब्बारे की तरह से हलके होकर सारे दुःख-तनाव को छोड़कर आसमान में गोते लगाएँगे। उस समय आप एक ऐसी दुनिया में पहुँच चुके होंगे, जहाँ हम तक कोई चाहकर भी पहुँच नहीं पाएगा। -इसी पुस्तक से अपने समय की चर्चित लेखिका वर्जिनिया वूल्फ ने विपुल मात्रा में लेखन किया। स्त्री-विमर्श उनके लेखन के केंद्र में रहा। स्त्रियों के मन की सुप्त भावनाओं, दुःख, उदासी तथा विडंबनाओं को प्रमुखता से अपनी कहानियों में प्रस्तुत किया है। मन को झकझोरने और संवेदनाओं को संपुष्ट करनेवाली कहानियों का पठनीय संकलन।

"The Voyage Out" is the first novel by Virginia Woolf, originally published in 1915. The story centres around Rachel Vinrace, who sets off on a trip aboard her father's ship. During the voyage, she gets to know the ship's crew, an odd assortment of mismatched people that includes Mrs Dalloway, the main character of Woolf's later novel. Rachel undergoes a personal journey of self-discovery that likely represents Woolf's transition from a repressive household to the intellectual freedom provided by the Bloomsbury Group. A clever satire of Edwardian life, "The Voyage Out" is not to be missed by fans of Woolf's seminal work. Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer. She is widely hailed as being among the most influential modernist authors of the 20th century and a pioneer of stream of consciousness narration. Woolf was a central figure in the feminist criticism movement of the 1970s, her works having inspired countless women to take up the cause. She suffered numerous nervous breakdowns during her life primarily as a result of the deaths of family members, and it is now believed that she may have suffered from bipolar disorder. In 1941, Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse at Lewes, aged 59. Other notable works by this author include: "Mrs Dalloway" (1925), "To the Lighthouse" (1927), and "Orlando" (1928). Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this brilliant novel now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Virginia Woolf's novel follows a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, an outwardly self-assured London socialite, as she prepares for her party that evening. Mrs. Dalloway's interior monologue flits from preoccupation with the details of her party to memories as a young girl some thirty years ago, and to the subsequent choices she made. She reveals a private umwelt that is torn between the stultifying conventional existence she has chosen to lead and what might have been had she accepted the marriage proposal of bohemian Peter Walsh. On the same day in another part of London - and unknown to Mrs. Dalloway until near the end of her party - is one Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked casualty of the Great War from a class far below hers. Smith's reality is, sadly, more internal than external and the thoughts that beset him on this sunny June day in 1923 are dark and foreboding. Woolf is here very likely drawing on her own mental breakdowns when portraying Smith's fractured world. The inner ruminations of these and other characters in Mrs. Dalloway underline just how little of ourselves most of us allow to be exposed.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’ Six friends traverse the uneven road of life together in Virginia Woolf’s most unconventional classic. Bernard, Jinny, Louis, Neville, Rhoda and Susan first meet as children by the sea, and their lives are forever changed. A poetic novel written in a lyrical way only Woolf could master, these narrators face both triumph and tragedy that touches them all. Throughout their lives, they examine the relationship between past and present, and the meaning of life itself. A landmark of innovative fiction and the most experimental of Virginia Woolf’s novels, The Waves is still regarded as one of the greatest works ever written in the English language.